I guess it's a matter of priorities

[kato]

I guess it's more important to be seen as a big player than it is to make sure your country has a secure food supply................

Flaherty defends summit costs

The cost of the G20 and G8 summits this month is the price that must be paid for Canada to be on the world stage, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Monday.

The total cost of hosting the meetings of world leaders in the Ontario community of Huntsville and Toronto hasn't been tallied yet. However, the cost of security alone is estimated at nearly $1 billion.

"I'm familiar with the budget for security," Flaherty told reporters in Toronto after returning from Busan, South Korea, where he met with G20 finance ministers over the weekend.

He added that the United States and United Kingdom have hosted the events previously and now "it's Canada's turn."

"Canada's playing an important role and it's one worth playing from time to time," Flaherty said.

"In today's international environment unfortunately, it's necessary to spend substantially on security. It's Canada's turn. Either we don't take our turn or we pay the appropriate amount necessary so that everyone is safe."

Flaherty also says the majority of G20 countries will not implement a tax on banks to pay for government bailouts — a position that Canada has championed.

[burnt]

And will spending a billion bucks guarantee that "everyone is safe"?

[kato]

And do they actually ever accomplish anything at these meetings other than have their pictures taken together?

[burnt]

You know what they say - a picture is worth a thousand bucks . . . oh wait that doesn't seem quite right.

[kato]

And it just gets crazier......... If they wanted to show a Canadian lake to a bunch of reporters, they should have chartered some buses...

Don't ever let anyone try and make you feel guilty about taking compensation money from the government! Ever. Ever!

OTTAWA - It's just a fake lake, but it's creating waves across the country.

The Council of Canadians says the artificial indoor lake that G8 organizers are building inside their Toronto media centre deserves a name.

The protest group is applying to the Geographical Names Board of Canada to have it named "Harper's Folly."

"This lake must have an appropriate name, and who better to name it after than Prime Minister Stephen Harper who approved of this expenditure as well as another $1.1 billion to be spent on three days of meetings," the group says in its application to the names board.

The lake is part of a $1.9-million display called The Canadian Corridor, meant to expose reporters to what Canada has to offer. It's supposed to give them the feeling of being in the Huntsville, Ont., area where the G8 summit will be held at the end of June.

The lakeshore is lined with racks of canoes donated by Muskoka residents, as well as deck chairs and a fake dock that camouflages several recharging stations for Blackberrys.

On the horizon, a giant screen portrays the real Muskoka, with its lakes, forests and rocky outcrops.

In reality, very few of the thousands of reporters covering the G8 will get anywhere close to Muskoka's cottage country. Only a small pool of about 200 reporters will be allowed to cover the G8 summit in Huntsville, and the rest will have to rely on a broadcast feed of the event fed into the media centre in Toronto.

That's precisely why the government chose to create a "Northern Ontario Oasis" at the media centre, said Peter Kent, minister of state for foreign affairs for the Americas.

"Every host country provides a media facility and I think that ... for a less cynical international media this will probably prove to be a benefit."

Kent said it was part of the host country's responsibility to provide adequate facilities for the media of the world.

"At every G8 and every G20 there are facilities provided for the media and they can chose to use them," he said.

Industry Minister Tony Clement tweeted a similar tune on Sunday.

Muskoka is part of his riding, and he is defending the display as legitimate promotion of the area.

"We've got up to 3000 int'l journalists in the media centre for 3 to 5 days. We should be condemned if we didn't promote!" Clement said in a Twitter response.

The federal Tories have been harshly criticized for budgeting $1.2 billion for security, hospitality and infrastructure to host the G8 summit in Huntsville and the G20 summit in Toronto.

But the lake project is well worth it, Clement said.

"Calm down. It is a reflecting pool," he urged critics.

"People: promoting tourism & Cdn business as a result of hosting Summits is a valid & legit aim & program."

A spokeswoman for the Ontario premier said late Monday that the province is not taking part in the federal display and is not paying any of the costs.

The opposition parties were quick to make waves.

NDP leader Jack Layton wondered who made the decision to create the lake and said taxpayers should be outraged at the expense.

"If there was one thing that we didn't have to create artificially in Canada, it would be a lake," he said. "We've got lakes everywhere."

Huntsville tourism and business leaders were consulted for the design of the pond.

The aim, officials say, is to give reporters the tools they need to put together knowledgeable pieces about the Huntsville area.

The effort is in stark contrast to the approach the federal government took to promoting Canadian tourism at the Olympics.

Ottawa dithered on whether to build a Canada pavilion for so long that, when the call was finally made to go ahead, organizers had to scramble. They hired an American firm. The result was a structure that was widely condemned as ugly, for the cost of $10 million.

The G8 organizers have hired Lord Cultural Resources Planning and Management Inc. of Toronto to design and build the Canadian Corridor. That's the same company that took charge of the Ontario Pavilion at the Olympics, to much acclaim.

Despite the presence of canoes, reporters will be discouraged from going out for a paddle between news conferences. The fake lake is quite shallow, and lifeguards will not be on hand.

[wilagro]

Then there is that security fence that they are building...my gawd, it would stop a herd of charging elephants...over ten feet high with an interlocking concrete base and tempered chain link fence. They must be expecting demonstrators driving tanks.

Oh well, its just money and WE have lots of it.
==

[Kathy]

Welcome to the new world order, friends. While Bilderberg meets in Spain to try and spread their tentacles further into governments around the world, we have a Canadian government that thinks spending a BILLION of your tax dollars to host a meeting for a few days is value well spent.

Meanwhile, they want us to sign over the farm and our privacy and our rights to take a few hundred bucks from government coffers for "programs" they design to give the public the impression they are "helping agriculture". GIVE ME A BREAK!

I heard on the news that the main security firm hired by CSIS and the RCMP to "enforce" their perimeters etc. -- does not have a license to operate in Ontario.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/08/toronto-g20.html

If you haven't figured it out yet, we "the taxpayers" of this once great country, are being taken for idiots and our pockets are being picked. (and future generations of Canadians are being enslaved to debt) Throw all these bums out (the politicians) and only elect individuals who run as independents. The Party is OVER.

[sagewood]

It is possible to 'throw out' the current batch of politicians -- or all parties, but have you ever tried to get rid of the bureaucrats? To my mind, the big 'B' group is the problem--way more than the politicians. The bureaucrats sit around dreaming up ways to protect their phony balony jobs and then pitch it to the governance body of the day and voila--money spent, great lakes built, rules laid out, taxes grabbed, peasants off to jail for defying any of the 'rules' laid out to have them live their ordered lives by. Oh, it would be good to win the lotto so that one did not have to fill out the stupid forms and go hat in hand for a few hundred dollars to keep the bottom line from turning from red to irridescent orange. But then, there is always the reporting of the income to contend with and thus--you cannot get away from those stiffelling, money-grabbing, incentive-killing bureaucrats. Must be the rain--my brain is wet today...at least the rain is still free..if taxes could be put upon that--well there I go again, digressing.